In a new study from the Medical University of Innsbruck, researchers found that protracted inflammation following COVID-19 is strongly linked to long-term changes in lung structure and function.
The results suggest that monitoring people for markers of inflammation after infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could help identify those at risk of long-term lung problems.
Although a vast majority of COVID-19 patients display mild disease, many reports lingering or recurring clinical symptoms and full recovery can take several months to years.
In the study, the team analyzed the recovery of 145 primarily hospitalised patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between March and June 2020.
They retrospectively assessed patient characteristics during their acute COVID-19 infection and then performed follow-up investigations at 60, 100 and 180 days.
They found almost half (49 percent) of patients had persistent complaints six months after diagnosis, with the most common complaints being impaired physical performance (34.7 percent of patients), sleep disorders (27.1 percent) and breathlessness on exertion (22.8 percent).
Although the frequency of these symptoms declined as time passed, they were slower to resolve at the 100-day and 180-day follow-up visits.
Six months after diagnosis, a third of patients (33.6 percent) had impaired lung function and almost half of patients (48.5 percent) had chest scans showing structural lung abnormalities, with one in five patients (19.4 percent) having moderate-to-severe lung alterations.
The team found that risk factors linked to severe and critical COVID-19 infection—namely being male, having long-term conditions such as high blood pressure, and high anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels—were also linked to long-term symptom persistence.
But in addition to these factors, elevated markers of inflammation—both body-wide and within blood vessels—were also associated with long-term lung abnormalities.
The team also found that although the inflammation markers predicted who would develop lung structure abnormalities, they could not accurately predict who would develop lung function problems or other symptoms such as breathlessness.
This suggests that even if patients have detectable changes to their lungs 60 days after diagnosis, this may not manifest as symptoms or changes in lung function yet, but could still lead to problems later.
Researchers hope that these could be used to identify those at risk of persistent lung problems and optimise their care to prevent long-term disability.
If you care about Covid, please read studies about a new risk factor for severe COVID-19, and the key to curing COVID-19.
For more information about Covid, please see recent studies about new antibody treatment for COVID-19, and results showing that exposure to harmless coronaviruses can boost your COVID-19 immunity.
The study is published in eLife and was conducted by Thomas Sonnweber et al.
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